Not all the year’s highlights, of course, had Shakespeare on the brain. Moxie Theatre and Mo`olelo Performing Arts Co. (whose leader, Seema Sueko, has departed for Pasadena Playhouse after a decade of major influence) teamed for a searing staging of Lydia Diamond’s “The Bluest Eye.” Ion Theatre continued to shake up San Diego with local premieres such as “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” and “Shining City.”

North Coast Rep demonstrated devotion to new plays with the world premiere of “Becoming Cuba”; Lamb’s Players Theatre showed its comic side to excellent effect with “The 39 Steps” (taking over from the long-running “miXtape”); and the Globe enjoyed its first return to Broadway in five years with its co-production of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” a musical that’s sure to be in the Tony Awards mix for 2014.

And in a memorable year for San Diego Rep (including the unclassifiable, music-infused “Federal Jazz Project” and the masterfully acted “Venus in Fur”), the musical “In the Heights” was one of the zeniths of the San Diego stage season.

That exuberant urban saga arrived, as it happened, in midsummer. From the Bard to the barrio, it was a year with plenty of heat, and peaks.